Marked Police Scooter

In an attempt to find out more about my scooter's history, I called the Ithaca Police Department and asked to speak to an officer who had been with the department the longest. I was directed to the wonderful Lt. Vincent Monticello. He put out an all points bulletin to his retired officer buddies and here's what he came up with about Ithaca police department's two Servetas:

John,

I spoke to one of our retired officers who came on the job in 1976. He remembers IPD having two scooters. One was to be used for the Ithaca Commons and the other for the West End Walking Beat. This retired Officer tells me that both scooters were involved in accidents very shortly after going into service and were taken out of service and sold. One apparently was driven into the side of a Detectives Car in the Police Parking Lot.

This makes sense. Both of the scooters had less than 800 miles on them when I saw them in Colorado. The one I have is more than likely the bike that crashed into the Detective's car because it has a nice long healthy scratch on a dinged fender. Ouch.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any photos of the Ithaca police bikes while they were in use. It would seem unlikely that any exist because the bikes were probably only used a matter of months before they were sold at auction.

To reconstruct the police decals, I had to do a lot of guess work. I could tell by the remnants of the old decals that they were roughly 3 inches by 13 inches in a long rectangular piece. The decals were apparently reflective white with black outline.

I made up my own design on Decalzone.com for fairly cheap. And while the decals were difficult to get on without making a bubbled mess, I eventually got them to look good enough for government work --- probably how they looked originally.